Turbine engines, particularly gas or combustion turbine engines, are rotary engines that extract energy from a flow of combusted gases passing through the engine onto a multitude of turbine blades. Gas turbine engines have been used for land and nautical locomotion and power generation, but are most commonly used for aeronautical applications such as for aircraft, including helicopters. In aircraft, gas turbine engines are used for propulsion of the aircraft. In terrestrial applications, turbine engines are often used for power generation.
Turbine engines used in aircraft produce substantial amounts of heat that must be transferred away from the engine. Heat exchangers provide a way to transfer heat away from such engines. For example, heat exchangers can be arranged in a ring about a portion of the engine.
Oil can be used to dissipate heat from engine components. Heat is typically rejected from the oil to air by heat exchangers to maintain oil temperatures at a desired range from approximately 100° F. to 300° F. Fins provided on a surface of the heat exchanger are used to increase heat transfer from oil to the air by convection. Increasing the efficiency at which the heat is removed is always desirable.